Announcement: To see an overview of all the holds in this forum, see this page. You cannot directly add your hold by attaching it here - you must get your hold approved by Hold Administrators. Check this thread for details.

Well, here's the new Smitemasters' Selection: Finding the First Truth. Everyone's probably eager to get started, so I'll try not to ramble on too long.

My name is George Wanfried and I've been playing DROD for almost six years. At the moment I'm 18 and about to start my second year in college. Being part of this whole "people who made Smitemasters' Selections for Caravel Games" group is quite an honor - I'm glad the community thinks I'm producing good material, and I feel I was quite lucky to be in the right place at the right time with a hold ready to go for Caravel.

A little bit about the hold: While I think this hold does continue in the grand tradition of Smitemasters' Selections that are pretty difficult, I don't think this hold is going to be a major problem for people to complete, unlike the infamous difficulty of Perfection and Beethro's Teacher. This probably won't be any more difficult to get through than the main Journey to Rooted Hold or The City Beneath holds. That said, there are some tough rooms and some puzzles I haven't seen anywhere else yet, so don't be afraid to ask for help if you've been working at a puzzle between sessions and still can't get it.

There's a lot of interesting stuff in this hold, absolutely canon, that you won't want to miss before playing DROD: The Second Sky. Beethro will return to the City and get two new clues: one pointing him to the location of the notorious architect Jobus, and another about what those Archivists are up to with this Grand Event. Although there will be many tough obstacles and adversaries to overcome, he will learn that learning can be a powerful tool. Perhaps with an organization and proper use of the Truthlock Method, Beethro might finally be able to get one step ahead of the Empire.

When you first enter the hold, you'll be presented with an option. Most people should probably go ahead and enter the city, since there's a lot of interesting information in there, you can go to the Library and talk to the Librarian, and get plenty of information about what you're going to be doing. If for some reason you're in a hurry to go get stuck on the puzzles immediately, the other option skips you directly to the puzzles and gives you an abridged summary of the events.

And now I'd like to thank a whole bunch of people, again, and this time name names.

I'd like to thank all the people who tested the original hold in beta, such as BoyBlue, jbluestein, Rheb, and slimm tom. I'd like to give special thanks to CuriousShyRabbit and larrymurk, who had a lot of valuable comments and put in a lot of testing work just before release to make sure the rooms were almost unbreakable.

For story purposes, Erik was responsible for creating the Truthlock Method documents and the overall plot. Tim, mrimer and I fit the plot into the hold and wrote in the details. Tim and mrimer wrote dialogue and did editing and consistency checks, while I was responsible for building the cutscenes. mrimer was very helpful in checking all the numbers and canon references we used, putting them in where appropriate, and he also did the voice and sound editing work. A surprisingly large number of the dialogue and jokes I wrote managed to stay in, and I think all the voice actors did a great job with what they were given.

I've been playing this hold since February 2008, and I've enjoyed it every time I've replayed it. I hope everyone else likes it as much as I do.

Erik's storyline is solid, and quite an interesting change of pace for Beethro. Most of the story telling happens at the beginning and end of the hold, but there are plenty of surprises and fun stuff in between.

Chaco has created four main puzzle levels, based on sworded game elements. There are puzzles about figuring out the right order to do things, lynchpin puzzles based on how the sworded entities interact with other game elements, puzzles that are all about manipulation, and more... The Decoy Level, aside from the first two puzzles you see, is probably the easiest.

I will say this: I don't feel like I have to find some ridiculous lynchpin to do the puzzle, the issue I'm having is that the rooms look literally incomprehensible to me half the time. Which I think is solely because I'm terrible at DROD, but I like that at least the actual execution doesn't have to be painfully precise when I /do/ get it.

Also, um. Very exuberant voice acting in many cases. Yes. There was a most excellent conversation in the chat about the voice acting, and honestly I never want to move a raft again.

quote:Banjooie wrote:
Also, um. Very exuberant voice acting in many cases. Yes. There was a most excellent conversation in the chat about the voice acting, and honestly I never want to move a raft again.

Also I dispute the assertion that this is on a difficulty level with JtRH (TCB maybe, seeing as it's harder than JtRH). JtRH had a guard level, yeah, but you didn't have to manipulate individual guards so much. I beat JtRH level 25, but the Entrance on the Guard Level stumps me completely.

I'm not good at reviewing stuff so I'll say this: The puzzles were fun, even if they were disconcerting at first. Half the puzzle seemed to be how everything fit together and the goal of the room was never, ever immediately obvious. That isn't a complaint however, I thoroughly enjoyed being perplexed about how it all fit.

If I had to say anything bad about the hold at all, it would have to be a few very small nitpicks about the story.

SPOILERS (Duh)

Click here to view the secret text

×
The ending cutscene seemed to go on for far too long with a lot of new information. I'm not sure how it could have been spread out more but maybe some spreading out was necessary? DROD's cutscene engine really doesn't seem to be made out for long conversations, the gaps between lines seems unnatural in places, and the longer the scene is the harder it would be to finetune. Not something you can fix I know, but just sharing.

Also, if Jobus is going to be a main reoccurring character in TSS. Please, PLEASE have him take a throat lozenge or something. The squeaky voice was fine for a joke character in Perfection but not as someone Beethro will be interacting with for long periods of time.

One more thing, I was kinda hoping those diamond doors would become a puzzle element in the Exit Level, I was disappointed to see them only used for plot purposes. Doors that remain open or closed across visits would be a game changer.

I'm no good at rating difficulty, but it was certainly worth a 10 for fun!

I'm working my way through this hold at the moment. I will provide a review upon completion but I've got a few questions for now if you'll indulge me:

Crumbly Level

Click here to view the secret text

×Because I've accessed this before clearing Exit Level, is there a situation where I'll need to re-clear Exit Level: 3S1W again in order to re-access this level?

Slayer Level 1S

Click here to view the secret text

×What is the purpose of the blue door/orb here? Or is it something like you can trap the slayer in the 3x3 room for some additional dialogue?

Crumbly Level 2S1W

Click here to view the secret text

×The Aumtlich and L-shaped door on the left of this room didn't play any part in my solving of this room. Given my unoptimised score is 1st place by some 60-odd moves have I found an unintended solution?

One further item:

Exit Level: 7S2E was marked as high-scorable but it shouldn't have been - I've 1-moved it so I believe that will force the room as unscorable?

____________________________
Without struggle, there is no progress, so get up, get out, and go make the rest of your life the best of your life; you deserve to live the life that YOU want to live...

×I believe the orb behind the blue door is to make it easier for players to go back through the yellow door that's toggled by the bomb. It's not necessary though. I didn't use it either.

Crumbly Level 2S1W - Your solution is exactly the intended one, and your #1 will not last for long. My unoptimized demo is 20 moves faster. However, I'm waiting some of you other fine players to master the hold before I replay it for scores.

When a hold is promoted, all its rooms start out as scorable. They become unscorable when people 1-move them like you did. Chaco, the architect, manually marked the story rooms unscorable after promotion. He did this because players can't 1-move a trivial room with a long cutscene in it.[Last edited by CuriousShyRabbit at 08-05-2011 11:47 PM]

Cleared! I still have some secrets to go, but whatever, I've seen the hold.

A solid SmS that, unlike prior ones, actually has a plot!

The good:

Brilliant tricks with the sworded elements. The elements have all been around for a while, but the mimic control mechanisms in 1E and 1S1E, the decoy rotation mazes, and some of the later room designs were amazing.

Polished throughout, of course. Chaco does remarkably well at giving holds a canonical DROD feel - it doesn't quite match the innovation of Rheb's Complex Complex as a result, but it feels more like an evolution of the core holds than any of the other SmSes that I can remember.

Difficulty was pitched almost perfectly - I don't think I've ever had the traditional "complain and solve" approach work as well as it did here. I tended to solve rooms after getting royally irritated at them and wanting to give up on them, but well before needing to get hints, which is about what should be happening.

The bad:

Some of the rooms tended toward impenetrable complexity. They always fell successfully to a "well, I can do this, so let's try it and see what happens" approach, but it wasn't always clear from the start what my actions would lead to. I wonder how many such cases resulted from having a particularly brutal beta testing squad.

This is an excellent, well-polished hold from Chaco. Given the high standard of work beginning with his first proper hold Chaco's Hold it's no surprise that we've ended up here. I'm going to repeat some of the previous comments, but I think that difficulty-wise this is perfectly pitched - it doesn't have the insane inaccessability of Beethro's Teacher but at the same time it's not so easy that it doesn't provide the odd challenge here and there.

There's no horde management to be found in this hold, and in almost all cases, everything in a room is there for a reason so if you do find yourself getting stuck make sure you check everything in the room and you'll probably find what you were missing.

Some of the voice acting seems a bit over-exuberant although I imagine it was probably quite fun to do it.

I thought the ending did seem a bit too long, although this hold did advance the story more than Suit Pursuit so it's worth completing it for that reason alone.

The Mastery Level was a nice throwback to the JtRH and TCB master levels.

Some specific room comments:

Click here to view the secret text

×Slayer Level: 1S2E - I though this was a bit too repetitive - I think you could have done it in 3 or 4 iterations without losing the point of the puzzle

Click here to view the secret text

×Guard Level: 1N1E - this was the perfect example of everything being there, and you having to work out how it all comes together

Click here to view the secret text

×Guard Level: 1S1E - I think this was a good choice as unrequired as I nearly lost my patience with it a few times

Click here to view the secret text

×Exit Level: 3S1W - For me, this was the most difficult room in the hold in terms of individual enemy manipulation, and as an added bonus, you get to do it 3 times!

Click here to view the secret text

×Exit Level: 4S1W - This is my favorite room in this hold - more like this please!

Click here to view the secret text

×Mastery Level: 2N1E - My solution to this room seems more unintended than Rabscuttle's (and some 200 moves less efficient!), and I also did not use the decoy potion, or see a use for it

Click here to view the secret text

×Exit Level: 7S1E & Mastery Level: 1S1W - Very good :-)

Final Verdict: An excellent addition to the Smitemasters' Selection suite which has got me looking forward to the next official hold a whole lot more:

Difficulty: 7
Fun: 10

____________________________
Without struggle, there is no progress, so get up, get out, and go make the rest of your life the best of your life; you deserve to live the life that YOU want to live...

There are some great stuff, for sure, and it got me hooked. I especially liked the mimic-level. Looking back at the rooms they are clever and original, all I could ask for, it would seem. I think I might have felt some rooms were a bit messy. That the solving of the room was messy even though you knew what needed to be done. This is however also true for lots of rooms I have utterly loved. I don't really know why I feel the way I do. A good hold, but not my favourite SMS.

Click here to view the secret text

×Storywise I got quite confused, and it felt a bit cheesy that Beethro ran away from a handful of guards, and just one guard in the end. Was Jobus expecting Beethro to show up, and if so, why didn't he just give Beethro the scrolls?

Edit: And post-mastered. I liked the master-level, and the secrets I had left to get to it.[Last edited by Blondbeard at 08-18-2011 06:16 PM]

×I was pleasantly surprised by the way the four levels used their thematic elements in unexpected ways. Rooms on the decoy level, for instance, were mostly not "figure out where the decoy goes", but rather "figure out how to keep the decoys alive", or "figure out which way they should face", or the like. Similarly, the mimic rooms used mimics, but not just in a "move your mimic around" way, but rather often in "don't move your mimic around" ways. And so on. It made the hold feel particularly fresh.

I will admit that some of the "Exit Level" rooms felt a little too baroque to me, and in at least one of them (5S) I didn't so much plan out how to conquer it as much as move around in the only way that didn't lead to disaster, and eventually I found it cleared.

The voice acting was, by and large, quite good. (Although I believe Jobus has been replaced by a muppet, and as for certain secret-room guards....) I agree with whoever it was above who said that the post-puzzle plot rooms seemed to have cutscenes that lasted forever; maybe it was just the really long pauses.

Mastery Level: 1S cracked me up.

The two things that struck me, plotwise, were that--

Click here to view the secret text

×(a) the Empire seems to be building a Turing machine? (A language with no ambiguity = deterministic machine, "returns with an answer or never comes back" = the halting problem...) I'm hoping that in the next game we meet 43rd Computational Theorist.

I've seen this comment (or related ones about exuberance) multiple times and I am intensely curious. What lines are we talking about here? What character?

As a sidenote, while I was doing my lines I felt I was somewhat blind as to what was going on. I didn't have a story board and no idea what kind of voice or personality the character was supposed to have. So I guessed (I assume we all guessed) and Mike chose.